God withdraws himself from himself in order to create. For where there is God there cannot be any creatures since these would be overpowered by His majesty and swallowed up, as it were, into His being.

God is the circle of infinity whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.

God does not exist but is existence itself.

God is a call calling rather than a cause causing; a soft voice that is easily dismissed, distorted or ignored.

God is all of the above, but I am in agreement with John D Caputo (The Weakness of God):

“I approach God neither as a supreme entity whose existence could be proven or disproved or even said to hang in doubt, nor as the horizon of being itself or its ground, either of which would lodge God more deeply still in the onto-theological circuit that circles between being and beings.”

A human being is the relating of a relation — a synthesis of the Infinite and the finite, Eternal and temporal, Freedom and necessity — relating to itself. The relating is everything: concepts and ideas pertaining to God are all but irrelevant.

I have no issue with perspective if the relative propositions are
clearly qualified.

I can understand from the child's perspective if he insists Santa Claus is real, live in the North Pole, travels around in a cart propelled by flying reindeers. I am not going to argue with the child on his claims.

If an average adult claim God within a fantasy perspective as an imagination only and on a personal and private basis then I have no issue with that.

As per the criteria for your god as listed above my comments are as follows;

If 'create' in the above meant creating the existing empirical world/universe then I cannot agree to that without empirical proofs or any justified arguments.

If any of your claims crossed into the real world, then you will have to provide proofs and justified arguments why they are real.

There is no issue with me if your God is merely a fantasy within your mind after all there are psychological justifications for a need to belief in God.

The biggest issue with God for me is when theists claim their god is real [empirical, etc.] to the extent of delivering his messages and commands via human agents [prophets, messengers] in holy texts.

God is all of the above, but I am in agreement with John D Caputo (The Weakness of God):

As I understand him, Caputo is not in agreement with most of the above, with the exception of a call. His rejection is part of his “theology without theology”. Rather than argue against such views on the same grounds on which those claims are made, he leaves aside such matters altogether because they set limits and conditions on the unlimited and unconditional. Caputo’s deconstruction shows this limiting and conditioning at work even where the aim is just the opposite, as is the case with Tillich’s ground of being, who Caputo says, does not go far enough.

He attempts to move beyond, as you quote, the onto-theological circuit that circles between being and beings. This means moving beyond questions of God’s being and existence. In terms of his “theopoetics” he says, that God does not exist, God insists. Rather than either affirm or deny God’s existence, he presents a theology of “perhaps”. This is the theme of his, “The Insistence of God :A Theology of Perhaps”.

In simplest terms, it is not for Caputo a matter of what we say about God or God’s relation to man, but of what we are called to do. This call is not one of obedience to a moral code. There is no road map for the road is always under construction. We must make our way. One’s way is not guided by principles and rules but by love, mercy, and justice. It is a response to those in need.

See how they love one another. How? Without why. Thus does the kingdom come. Period. The end. ("Does the Kingdom of God Need God?")

In God, every thing, every where, every when and their every possibility converge.

People are free to disagree, misunderstand, misappropriate what was said or argue that’s not what a particular philosopher meant, but it’s not about ideas or beliefs or even God: it’s about felt relations and interpretative concepts.

To both of the above respondents: What does anything you say have to do with the OP? There is nothing debatable in what I said.

In simplest terms, it is not for Caputo a matter of what we say about God or God’s relation to man, but of what we are called to do. This call is not one of obedience to a moral code. There is no road map for the road is always under construction. We must make our way. One’s way is not guided by principles and rules but by love, mercy, and justice. It is a response to those in need.

What does anything you say have to do with the OP? There is nothing debatable in what I said.

There is an apparent contradiction in saying that God is all of the above and also agreeing with Caputo. I pointed to some of the differences. You do not have to accept everything that Caputo has to say, but that does not mean it was not appropriate for me to point to some of the things he says that are not in agreement with your claims regarding what God is. To to address whether one thinks there is a contradiction and whether it can be resolved or should stand, is part of what theological/philosophical discussion is about.

Did I say anything at all that disagrees with the above?

It has more to do with where Caputo stands in relationship to other theologians. As I said, he disagrees with most of what you claim God to be. He thinks that such talk puts limits and conditions on what is unlimited and unconditional. Even the claim that God is infinite is, as he deconstructs it, a conceptual limit.

I have been reading Caputo's theological works and find him interesting. I assumed, since you have mentioned him several times, that you were interested in discussing what he has to say.

God withdraws himself from himself in order to create. For where there is God there cannot be any creatures since these would be overpowered by His majesty and swallowed up, as it were, into His being.

You may appreciate How Simone Weil expands on this idea of the absence of God as claimed in Wikipedia:

Absence is the key image for her metaphysics, cosmology, cosmogony, and theodicy. She believed that God created by an act of self-delimitation—in other words, because God is conceived as a kind of utter fullness, a perfect being, no creature could exist except where God was not. Thus creation occurred only when God withdrew in part. Similar ideas occur in Jewish mysticism.

This is, for Weil, an original kenosis ("emptiness") preceding the corrective kenosis of Christ's incarnation (cf. Athanasius). We are thus born in a sort of damned position not owing to original sin as such, but because to be created at all we had to be precisely what God is not, i.e., we had to be the opposite of what is holy. (See Apophatic theology.)

This notion of creation is a cornerstone of her theodicy, for if creation is conceived this way (as necessarily containing evil within itself), then there is no problem of the entrance of evil into a perfect world. Nor does this constitute a delimitation of God's omnipotence, if it is not that God could not create a perfect world, but that the act which we refer towards by saying "create" in its very essence implies the impossibility of perfection.

However, this notion of the necessity of evil does not mean that we are simply, originally, and continually doomed; on the contrary, Weil tells us that "Evil is the form which God's mercy takes in this world".[61] Weil believed that evil, and its consequence, affliction, served the role of driving us out of ourselves and towards God—"The extreme affliction which overtakes human beings does not create human misery, it merely reveals it."[62]

The only way it makes sense to me is when I appreciate God as what IS and creation as a process taking place within Isness. The process must include lawful intentional inexactitudes making the process of existence possible.

God does not exist but is existence itself.

So for me the body of God or existence takes place within NOW or ISNESS.

I have not read Caputo so do not what he means by weakness. All I do know is that weakness can only refer to the process of existence. ISNESS is neither strong or weak. It IS.

God withdraws himself from himself in order to create. For where there is God there cannot be any creatures since these would be overpowered by His majesty and swallowed up, as it were, into His being.

Is the leftover god from which god withdrew himself, still god? If it is, then god hasn't done the withdrawal properly. If it is not, then it can't create. Or else you are mixed up with the language, the concepts, and the possible.

“I approach God neither as a supreme entity whose existence could be proven or disproved or even said to hang in doubt, nor as the horizon of being itself or its ground, either of which would lodge God more deeply still in the onto-theological circuit that circles between being and beings.”

Watch and read what you quoted: the entire text says nothing but how John D. Caputo does not approach god. (Unfortunately for the author, I actually read the quote and understood its essence: this is not how John D. Caputo approaches god.)

How can you approach a circle anyway which has no point of centre and no perimeter.

Or how can you approach a soft voice, or more pointedly, how can you approach something that simply does not exist.

But that is not my issue. The issue is that other than naming one small way of literally billions of ways how not to approach god, John D. Caputo says NOTHING on how he actually DOES approach god.

As I understand him, Caputo is not in agreement with most of the above, with the exception of a call. His rejection is part of his “theology without theology”. Rather than argue against such views on the same grounds on which those claims are made, he leaves aside such matters altogether because they set limits and conditions on the unlimited and unconditional. Caputo’s deconstruction shows this limiting and conditioning at work even where the aim is just the opposite, as is the case with Tillich’s ground of being, who Caputo says, does not go far enough.

He attempts to move beyond, as you quote, the onto-theological circuit that circles between being and beings. This means moving beyond questions of God’s being and existence. In terms of his “theopoetics” he says, that God does not exist, God insists. Rather than either affirm or deny God’s existence, he presents a theology of “perhaps”. This is the theme of his, “The Insistence of God :A Theology of Perhaps”.

In simplest terms, it is not for Caputo a matter of what we say about God or God’s relation to man, but of what we are called to do. This call is not one of obedience to a moral code. There is no road map for the road is always under construction. We must make our way. One’s way is not guided by principles and rules but by love, mercy, and justice. It is a response to those in need.

See how they love one another. How? Without why. Thus does the kingdom come. Period. The end. ("Does the Kingdom of God Need God?")

I completely fail to see how all this incomprehensibility you managed to put on paper is NOT in agreement with the following:

- god can be and not be in herself at the same time and in the same respect
- god is a circle
- god is impotent
- god does not exist
- there is at least one way in which John D. Caputo does not approach god.

It’s not about ideas or who said what, but the ideals I am drawn to by experience. The listed perspectives are images meant to figuratively convey to others what is sensed on a deeply personal level. There is nothing to debate or challenge.

If it is a stream of consciousness, which you seem to be saying it is, then it's acceptable. The only thing with streams of consciousness is that it never communicates; it uses language, yet it is never any part of any person-to-person information exchange.

If it is a stream of consciousness, which you seem to be saying it is, then it's acceptable. The only thing with streams of consciousness is that it never communicates; it uses language, yet it is never any part of any person-to-person information exchange.

Reflex makes sense to me. The circle he describes I know of as the Ouroboros: "a circular symbol depicting a snake, or less commonly a dragon, swallowing its tail, as an emblem of wholeness or infinity." Our difference is that for me the ouroboros is not NOW but exists within NOW.